


To Me More Dear

by draculard



Category: Hamish MacBeth (TV), Hamish Macbeth - M.C. Beaton
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Do you like those cute little scenes of Hamish checking up on the elderly and doing chores?, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hamish going about his rounds, Winter in the Highlands, then this is the fic for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21584869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: An early blizzard comes to Lochdubh in mid-November, covering the town in snow.
Relationships: Hamish Macbeth/Angela Brodie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	To Me More Dear

**Author's Note:**

> The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,  
> The joyless winter day,  
> Let others fear, to me more dear  
> Than all the pride of May
> 
> —Robert Burns, Winter: A Dirge

The first Highland snow came in mid-November, and true to fashion, it was more of a blizzard than a flurry. The first wall of flakes slammed against Hamish’s windows just after dark and coated the glass in white within the hour — and it wasn’t long after that when he heard the beasts scratching at the door, begging to be let in just as they’d begged to be let out before the snow.

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes, he noted wryly, to tell the cold and damp bothered Lugs more than it did Sonsie. The wild cat sauntered inside and made her way to the food bowl instantly, ravenous but not overly upset. Lugs, on the other hand, barreled straight onto the armchair closest to the fire and stuck his nose right into the peat smoke, as though inhaling it might warm him up faster. 

Hamish glanced out the kitchen door only once — briefly, to avoid the cutting wind — and grimaced at the snow drifts already piled high on the henhouse roof. 

“If it breaks again,” he said darkly, “I’m no fixing it till spring.”

In response, Sonsie only ruffled her fur. Hamish suspected she preferred it when the hens ran free, anyway. Then she could blame her poaching on strays, so long as no one caught her with the victim. He turned away from the door and attempted, not quite successfully, to share the chair with Lugs. Sonsie followed, leaping from the floor to the top of the chair, where she dug her claws into the upholstery and settled down.

With the fireplace loaded, the little police station was almost warm enough to be declared inhabitable. Hamish pulled a sweater covered in cat fur over his tartan shirt, picked up a dog-eared American detective novel, and, with Lugs nestled against his side and Sonsie perched behind his head, waited for the storm to pass.

* * *

He left the police station in the early morning, when fog lay heavy over the loch and the sun was just starting to peek out from the pale mountains, tinting the snow pink. He wore a heavy pair of snow boots Pricilla had given him the Christmas before, waterproof with a so-called Arctic grip that never seemed to help on the ice. Sonsie trotted after him, seeming to glide weightlessly over the snow and leaving a row of uncommonly-large paw prints behind her. 

Lugs, being perhaps the wisest of the three, opted to stay inside. 

There was smoke coming from every chimney — no amount of modernization, it seemed, could convince a highlander to use electric rather than start a fire on a cold night. The streets had been salted already by an earlier riser than Hamish, and he could feel the nearly-invisible crystals grinding beneath his feet as he walked. 

On the sides of the road, he could see sprigs of vivid purple poking through the snow. It wasn’t fair, he thought mournfully, for winter to start before the heather had turned brown. Near the loch, he could just make out the dark figure of Archie Maclean, stamping his feet to keep warm, fishing pole bobbing recklessly as he moved; opposite him, nearly as tall and much thinner, stood a heron, its beak pointed toward the water.

It was a beautiful day, really, despite the weather, and Hamish would have liked to do a bit of walking on the braes. But he had his rounds to get to.

And they always took the longest after a storm.

* * *

“The pipes are absolutely frozen through,” said Nessie Currie, her nose pinched. 

“Frozen through,” said Jessie with a little nod of agreement. Hamish stood just inside their doorway, arms crossed so that his hands were tucked against his ribs for warmth. The Currie house was like a lesson in austerity — little in the way of furniture and only a small peat fire in the sitting room to warm the whole abode.

“Leave your water running last night?” asked Hamish, and he knew by the stiff looks on their faces that they hadn’t. “Now, you knew it was going to snow,” he said crossly. “It was a right daft thing to do, not leaving the faucets to drip. And I notice you haven’t any hay bales outside against the foundation to keep out the cold.”

“Och, what are we supposed to do with hay bales?” said Nessie. “I expect you think we can carry them down the streets on our backs? At our age? In our delicate conditions?”

“Delicate conditions?” said Jessie.

Hamish only shook his head. With no water, they had no tea to offer him, but there were fresh scones on a platter before him and he took one almost begrudgingly. “I’ll get ye the hay bales myself,” he said, accent becoming thicker as he thought of the dismal job ahead. “But first I’ll take a look at your pipes and set them right. Chust let me scurry back and change.”

He made his way to the station with the rising sun at his back. People were milling about now in varying stages of winter discontent, women making half-hearted swipes at the icicles above their doors with broomsticks, men dragging shovels against the walkways and meticulously measuring their property lines so as to not infringe on a neighbor’s share of the work. 

In the station, Hamish shimmied quickly and regretfully out of his finest cardigan and into the coarse blue wool of his police sweater. He stepped into a set of waterproof coveralls, still stained with mud from the salmon-poaching he’d done in the summer, and covered the whole ensemble in his least-favorite uniform item: the bulky raincoat he only wore for the most unsavory of chores. Lugs watched him the entire time, perched in a nest of blankets atop Hamish’s bed.

“Glad one of us is keeping warm,” Hamish muttered.

And then, with Sonsie at his heels, he was off — to force his long, lanky body into the Curries’ dirt-clogged crawlspace, a hair-dryer clutched firmly in one gloved hand and an extension cord tangling in his feet.

Within an hour, the pipes were thawed.

And Hamish was fairly certain he had frostbite on his toes. He hurried home, glowering at Lugs, and changed quickly into his warmest clothes again. Outside, the sun was sparkling over the snow, throwing a blinding light against Hamish’s windows. 

Cheeks still burning from the cold, Hamish sighed and coaxed Sonsie into a large haversack. When she was settled, he crouched and pulled the straps over his arms, lifting her off the floor on his back. She’d go with him when he left whether he liked it or not, and he was sure the salt on the roads must be hurting her paws.

He gathered an old wooden sledge from the shed behind the police station and gazed up the hill to Angus Macdonald’s house with another long sigh.

Well, it was a beautiful day for a hike, he supposed.

* * *

His arms ached from dragging a sledge full of groceries on his way up, but the ride down more than made up for it. With Sonsie on his back, he pushed the sledge ahead of him and jumped on right as it reached the edge of the hill. The snow sprayed up at his sides, soft and white; the wind turned his ears to blocks of ice even beneath his police-issue knit cap. 

When the sledge finally slowed to a halt, he found himself nearly face-to-face with a smiling Angela Brodie.

“Hamish,” she said, trying to hide her grin. Hamish tipped sideways off the sledge and into a deep drift, doing his best to keep Sonsie dry. He could feel the cold, wet snow creeping past the protection of his gloves to bite at the exposed skin on his wrists.

“Angela,” he said, a little breathless.

“Shouldn’t you leave the sledding to the children?” she asked. Leaning over, Hamish grabbed the leather harness of the sledge out of the snow.

“I was taking groceries up to Angus,” he explained. “I thought…”

Well, he didn’t need to explain himself to her; she understood well enough. He remembered how she and Mrs. Wellington had once brought groceries to Angus the same way when he was ill, and how Hamish had pushed the sledge through the snow while they sat on it before jumping on himself. He’d wedged himself in behind Angela, his thighs tight against hers and his hands assembled awkwardly, one on her shoulder, one on her waist. She’d been so warm through her coat, it almost burnt him. 

He found himself smiling at Angela, admiring the pale pink flush of cold on her cheeks. With her wispy hair and her black wool coat, she looked like something from a Gothic Romance, especially with the snowy landscape of Lochdubh and the Twin Sisters spread out behind her.

Of course, she probably wouldn’t like it if he made a Bronte reference. 

“Is that your cat on your back?” asked Angela, craning her neck to see. Sonsie stuck her head out of the haversack and turned her yellow eyes on Angela, who wrinkled her nose. “Great greedy beast was round at mine’s last night begging for scraps.”

“Och, well …” Embarrassed, Hamish wasn’t sure whether to defend Sonsie or apologize for her. When she poked him with one of her massive, curved claws, he decided the former was the best choice. “Perhaps I haven’t been feeding her well enough.”

Angela gave him a knowing look. “Rubbish. You cook breakfast for those beasts each morning before you’ve even had your own coffee. There’s no other man in town fries sausage and eggs for his pets, Hamish.”

“They’ve saved my hide more than once,” said Hamish with a shrug that didn’t hide his blush. “I rather think they’ve earned a few hearty meals.”

He knew, of course, that Sonsie and Lugs received one hearty meal from him each morning, fresh from the stove — and that they then took off down the streets of Lochdubh for biscuits from the Currie sisters and meat scraps from Mr. Patel, and then flounced greedily up the hills for fish from Angela and home-cooked Italian food from the Tommel Castle Hotel. If they were lucky, Priscilla was there to give them their own sandwiches as well, and they’d always be back at the police station in time for tea.

He couldn’t count the number of times he’d cooked supper for Sonsie and Lugs after a long day and then collapsed into bed hungry, too exhausted to cook anything for himself.

“You know,” said Angela, still giving him that cheeky, knowing smile, “that cat survived well enough on her own before you took her in. I daresay she’d find plenty of food, left to her own devices.”

“She’s domesticated now,” Hamish protested. Sonsie laid her heavy head on his shoulder and stared at Angela with her baleful yellow eyes, as though she agreed. “Hasn’t caught so much as a mouse in years.”

Which wasn’t strictly true. Or, in fact, at  _ all _ true. She’d killed a whole family of rabbits last week.

“Well,” said Angela, shuffling her feet in the snow, “I suppose you must be getting on your rounds.”

“Aye,” said Hamish. He bit his lip and shifted the haversack’s weight, pretending not to hear Sonsie’s murmurs of discontent. “Well, that is, I should. The Land Rover needs new snow tires, you see, and Blair’s bound and determined I shan’t get them.”

“The Land Rover needs new everything, I should think,” said Angela, but she looked pleased. “Pop ‘round to mine for coffee, Hamish. I’ve heard you promised the Currie sisters some hay bales to line their foundation, and I’ve got extra you can take. Just …” She eyed Sonsie. “Just leave the wild cat outside.”

Grinning and adjusting a grumpy Sonsie on his back, Hamish followed her home.

* * *

He stacked the hay bales on the sledge with Angela’s help, warmed by the coffee she’d given to him. The Brodie kitchen was unusually clean today — a result, Angela claimed, of being snowed in, though it wasn’t like she typically spent a lot of time outdoors — and he hadn’t hesitated to accept a mug like he normally would, always wary of the way her cats clambered over dirty dishes.

The twine of the hay bales dug painfully into his raw, red hands as he stacked them. The wind had chilled as the noon sun rose and fell and it seemed to bite into Hamish’s cheeks and nose worse than before.

Still, when Angela handed him the last bay of hale and stood on her tiptoes to help him lift it, even though he stood nearly a foot taller than her, he couldn’t help but smile.

“I’ll walk with you,” she said firmly, before he could either ask — as he wanted to — or insist she go back inside, as his conscience demanded. He gave her a meek smile and ducked his head in acquiescence; in all honesty, she was probably dressed better for the weather than he was.

Though there was one thing …

“Here,” he said, and pulled his knit cap off roughly with his gloved hand, holding it out to her. Angela glanced at the cap only briefly, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion -- then her eyes moved up and seemed to get stuck for a long moment on Hamish’s head, messy and blazing red and seeming almost to sparkle against the snow.

It was a long moment before Angela took the cap with a whispered, “Thank you.” By the time she did, both of them were blushing, and Hamish frankly couldn’t explain why. He watched his feet as he pulled the sledge, grateful again for the fancy snow boots Priscilla had given him — and at the thought of Priscilla, something twisted in his chest, and he realized for the first time that the thought of her filled him with sadness and nostalgia …

… but not longing. Not anymore.

Now, when had that happened?

They walked silently for a while, frozen heather crunching beneath their feet from time to time. Angela walked at Hamish’s side with her hand against one of the topmost hay bales to keep it from toppling. She glanced at him every now and then, bright eyes darting first to his face and then away to look at the brae. Hamish glanced at her, too, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

It was only when they’d reached the salted streets of Lochdubh and the Currie cottage was in sight that he thought of something so obvious it made him feel stupid.

“How’s the novel coming along?” he asked. They paused to let a single sheep pass by; it ambled slowly in and out of their path before catching sight of the heather behind them and clopping that way. Angela steadied the hay bales again; she’d put Hamish’s cap on carelessly, and it had trapped strands of her pale, wispy hair over her eyes. 

He felt the most insane urge to brush it away for her.

He resisted.

“It’s coming along beautifully, really,” Angela said. “For a while there, in the middle, I wasn’t getting much work done at all. I’d just sit and stare at that computer, and then I’d think I might as well start cleaning, and then I’d clean all day. But eventually I realized I simply  _ had _ to sit down and finish it, and once I got past that hump, the words wouldn’t stop coming.”

“I’d like to read it,” Hamish said honestly. He’d enjoyed her first novel immensely, though he’d been too embarrassed to give her much of a review.

“When it’s finished,” Angela said, and it might have been Hamish’s imagination, but he thought she looked pleased.

They reached the Currie cottage and slowed the sledge to a halt right up against the foundation. Hamish reached for the topmost bale of hay, aware of Angela’s hands reaching up alongside his — though of course, there wasn’t much she could do to help. He positioned the bales closely together and squeezed them tight against the cracked foundation, covering the dreaded crawlspace entirely.

As he put the last one into place, he saw the curtains flickering in the Curries’ window a moment before Angela gently grabbed his sleeve to get his attention. He glanced up and caught Nessie Currie staring out at him; she pulled away as soon as her eyes met his.

Hamish glanced at Angela, caught her rolling her eyes.

“She could at least say thank you,” Angela said. Hamish grinned at her and shrugged. He found it highly likely that in less than an hour — even with last night’s harsh snow — the whole town would know something ridiculous from Nessie Currie, like “yon Hamish Macbeth and Angela Brodie are having an affair!”

With the last of the hay bales situated, Hamish straightened and stretched, hearing his spine pop as he did so — though with Sonsie still on his back, there wasn’t much stretching he could really do. He tugged the sledge half-heartedly in the direction of his own home and was inordinately pleased when Angela fell into step beside him without hesitation.

He propped the sledge against his garden wall and shrugged the haversack off his back, allowing Sonsie to jump free to the ground. She disappeared inside the second Angela opened the kitchen door.

“Toasty in here,” Angela commented. 

“Your definition of  _ toasty _ is different from mine,” Hamish said — though Lugs had moved from Hamish’s bed to the armchair, which suggested it was at least a little warmer in here than it had been when he left.

“Well,” said Angela blithely, “my old farmhouse can’t retain heat to save its life. I could have seven fires burning in one room and still be cold.”

Privately, Hamish suspected she might be a great deal warmer if she ever cleaned the cold ashes out of her kitchen grate. He brushed past Angela and opened the oven, removing the bottle of whiskey he kept there to hide it from mooching villagers. Angela leaned against the counter while he poured two glasses, her shoulder brushing his. 

“You know,” she said slowly, “part of the reason my novel is going so well is down to you.”

Hamish blinked as he capped the whiskey bottle, unsure what to say. Unsure what Angela meant.

“You see, the narrative was getting rather stale,” Angela said, “and it seemed like no matter how I arranged the extant characters or the plot, it just didn’t get any livelier. The whole plot was dead and dull.”

Her fingers brushed his as she took her glass and he took his. Hamish gulped his a little too fast, the warmth spreading down his throat and pooling in his chest. He could feel himself flushing again and wished futilely — and perhaps a little crazily — that he blushed as prettily as Angela did, rather than turning so red that his skin matched his hair. 

“How’d you fix it?” he asked, voice hoarse from the alcohol. 

“I added a character,” Angela said, and she glanced at him with a quick, shy smile. “A lazy village bobby who’s too smart for his ain good.”

“Ach,” said Hamish weakly. “It’s not a detective novel you’re writing, is it?” He didn’t like the idea of himself as a classical American detective, gruffly working his way through multiple gunshot wounds and crushing villains’ skulls. 

Angela took a sip of whiskey, hiding her face in the glass.

“It’s a romance,” she murmured. “At least, it is now. It started out … oh, well, it’s different now.”

Hamish could only nod. His cheeks were burning so hotly he thought he might melt. He turned away, clearing his throat, and pretended to inspect something in the general area of the sink — even he wasn’t sure what. After a long moment, he heard the clink of Angela’s glass against the countertop and glanced over his shoulder.

She caught him looking at him.

She gave him a sad smile.

“Angela…” Hamish started, but he couldn’t think of anything to say, and Angela shrugged delicately before he could say anything at all.

“I know,” she said simply. “It’s just the snow, I suppose. It always puts me in a mood.”

He nodded again. He knew how she felt -- how his loneliness always seemed most keen in the winter, how he sometimes found it difficult to face the day when the ground was covered like this, when everything was white and cold. And at the same time, part of him cherished it; part of him enjoyed the bite of the wind.

He grabbed Angela’s wrist as she passed him.

“Stay a while,” he said.

“My husband—”

Her lips were cold against his. She went utterly still when he kissed her; he could feel strands of her wispy hair, damp from the melting snow, tickling his cheeks, could feel the warmth of her beneath her coat.

She tasted like whiskey, of course.

He found he rather liked that. He broke the kiss and pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her, feeling warmer than he had in a long time.

“Stay,” he said again, and Angela did.


End file.
